ELA Lessons for 3/23 - 3/30

Poem of the Day:  "Poems Which Talk Back to Me" by Sharon Olds

Overview and Directions:  As discussed, here are five ELA assignments from the English Department to help enrich your time away from school.  If you would like to engage with these together, please let me know in the comments section.  Some of you mentioned books you would like to read as a group.  I can connect students from my five classes for a reading group if you wish.  Just shoot me a quick comment so I know you're out there.

I am currently reading:  The Waves by Virginia Woolf and Arias by Sharon Olds.

I will add a post on Wednesday and Friday to offer a "Poem of the Day" as well as share some of the reading and work I am doing during this time.  Again, if you read a post, please just shoot me a quick comment so I know I am talking to someone.

Attention AP Students:  Here is an important update from the A.P. Board regarding the test:  Click here.  Your class links to the A.P. College Board Classes are below.  Most of you joined already.  Let me know if you have a problem finding the site. Once you login, you will see that I unlocked all the practice quizzes for you.  You should be able to quiz yourself and get results.  I did not set time limits, etc., so you can practice as you wish.  In the testing situation, you will have roughly 20 minutes for a multiple choice selection and 40 minutes for each essay.  I will continue to make posts with helpful A.P. materials for you.  Again, leave me comments to let me know how you would like to engage.  Zoom, blog, etc.

A.P. College Board (C Block)

View Video: My AP Student Experience
Join Class: Your AP Class Section
Join Code: 432NYK

A.P. College Board (B Block)

View Video: My AP Student Experience
Join Class: Your AP Class Section
Join Code: KP43JX

ELA Lessons for 3/23 - 3/30

Learning Activity 34:  Write a book review about a book you like by describing the book in such a way to make others want to read it. Record this book talk and share it if you would like with a friend or relative.

Learning Activity 61: Interview any adult about a big, national, “event” from their adolescence. Have them recall a memory of a time when life changed and the whole country/world was impacted. What happened? How did their routines change? How did they get through it? When did they return to “normal”?


Learning Activity 6: Humans are social beings and need contact or perceived contact with others. What are you doing right now to maintain a sense of community due to our distance? What are you doing to maintain a sense of normalcy and routine. Write for ten minutes about this experience and your thinking?

Learning Activity 29: Ideas.Ted.Com with Guy Winch https://ideas.ted.com/author/guy-winch/ peruse and select an article, read and respond with your thoughts and connections. ( I enjoyed, “Dear Guy: I’m incredibly anxious about coronavirus, what can I do?” and also the great video at the end of the article, “We all need to practice emotional first aid.”)


Learning Activity 16: Do a virtual museum tour of the one of the 12 museums highlighted in this article. Choose a piece of art perform a visual analysis using the 4-question protocol:

• What do you see?
• Where is your attention drawn?
• What is there to get (i.e. - what is the meaning of the work)?
• What more is there to ask?

Then, write a one-page reflection connecting the piece either to something you’ve read in class (a novel, poem, play, article, etc.) or to one of the essential questions for your grade [insert your grade’s EQs here]. How do these pieces speak to one another? What is the connection between the two, for you?

Lesson 5 - Mr. P. Reading "Ghosts," Act III With Analysis

Poem of the Day: “No Makeup” by Sharon Olds

Today's Lesson: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Mr. P. Reading Act III with Analysis.  You may add comments and/or ask questions if you'd further feedback. See text and film below for additional learning expereinces.

Reminder:  Look at last Vlog for important info.  See brief excerpt, below:

The State of Massachusetts has set guidelines about our learning experiences. At the time of this posting, there will be:

• No directed curriculum
• No deadlines
• No graded assignments

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Full Text

Lesson 4: Important Update - No Due Dates - No Grades - Just Learning Experiences

Poem of the Day: “Meeting a Stranger” by Sharon Olds

Today's Lesson:  Update from the State of Massachusetts on Learning during this crisis.

Hello my friends,

The State of Massachusetts has set guidelines about our learning experiences. At the time of this posting, there will be:

• No directed curriculum

• No deadlines

• No graded assignments

• Please disregard all due dates and work from Friday, March 13th.  Do not stress out about your grades, etc.  If you would like to complete work, I will accept it, but no one should feel obligated in any way to do work while we are out.

• Having said that, I will provide resources that have been developed by myself and other members of the English Department on a weekly basis for you to choose from and do if you wish to keep learning and active.

• For my part, I still want to stay connected with all of you and will continue to post my videos with a "Poem of the Day," sharing some kind of literary experience with all of you.  Again, this is voluntary.

• We are allowed to finish Ghosts, as we discussed, so we can have closure. If you want to read An Enemy of the People, for example, that can be an option, but no one should feel it is expected or that we will do it when we get back, it will be graded, etc.  Again, this is voluntary. We can still have experiences, but they will be more individually based.

I am here for all of you, and if you wish to speak to me through email or the blog you are always welcome.

Best always,

Mr. P.

Lessons 2&3: "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen – Mr. P. analysis of ACT II

Poem of the Day: “Looking South at Lower Manhattan, Where the Towers Had Been” by Sharon Olds

Today's Lesson: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen – Mr. P.'s analysis of ACT II

Lesson 1 - Vlog With Mr. P.

Overview and Directions: Please view the above video for my class instructions.

This will be a daily Vlog to help us keep connected as a class during this troubling time. I will always have a poem of the day, and offer daily lessons on our assignments. You will have the opportunity to comment on the blog post, and I can answer you the following day. We can also set-up class time to all be on the blog for an hour and comment together in real time.

I will address long-term assignments and we will begin new assignments together. I am looking to make this work as high interest as possible, which means the more you check-in and comment on the blog, the more input you will have on the work we do.

Today's "Poem of the Day" is from Sharon Old’s Arias, titled, “For You.”

Due Monday, March 23rd - "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen - ACT III

Overview and Directions: Please finish reading Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.  Taking into account the plot points, please comment on the significance of these events in the play, as well as Ibsen's purpose in addressing the audience's reactions to Nora's exit in A Doll House.  Think about the following plot points as you compose your response: Who really burned down the orphanage? How does the insurance come into play?  What do we learn about Engstrand?  Can you see a modern day equivalent to him?  Why is he so dangerous?  What is the name for the sailor's home? What is Regina's reaction to learning her parentage? What is Oswald's true reason for wanting to be with Regina? Why did Oswald really return? What does Ibsen mean by the line "softening of the brain" and "Mother? Give me the sun."  How is the final moment an indictment on the audience who felt that Nora has a duty to her family?  I look forward to your responses.

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Full Text

Quotations

1. And the refuge for wandering mariners shall be called "Chamberlain Alving's Home,” that it shall! And if so be as I'm spared to carry on that house in my own way, I make so bold as to promise that it shall be worthy of the Chamberlain's memory. 

2. Well then, child of joy as he was--for he was like a child in those days--he had to live at home here in a half-grown town, which had no joys to offer him--only dissipation. He had no object in life--only an official position. He had no work into which he could throw himself heart and soul; he had only business. He had not a single comrade that could realize what the joy of life meant--only loungers and boon companions - Your poor father found no outlet for the overpowering joy of life that was in him. And I brought no brightness into his home.

3. Yes, but she was one of that sort, all the same. Oh, I've often suspected it; but--And now, if you please, ma'am, may I be allowed to go away at once? A poor girl must make the best of her young days, or she'll be left out in the cold before she knows where she is. And I, too, have the joy of life in me, Mrs. Alving!

4. Everything you point to you shall have, just as when you were a little child.--There now. The crisis
is over. You see how easily it passed! Oh, I was sure it would.--And do you see, Oswald, what a lovely day we are going to have? Brilliant sunshine! Now you can really see your home. [She goes to the table and puts out the lamp. Sunrise. The glacier and the snow-peaks in the background glow in the morning light.]

5. [Sits motionless as before and says.] The sun.--The sun.

Due Monday, March 16th - "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen - Act II

Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the country, as thick as grains of sand. And we are so pitifully afraid of the light.

Overview and Directions:  Please read Ghosts, ACT II by Henrik Ibsen.  Next compose a 300-400 word blog response, using at least 2-3 direct quotations from the text.  Think about the symbolic representation of the characters, as well as the concept of ghosts.  Also, make connections to the seemingly unimportant information that Ibsen shared in ACT I to make a maximum impact on the audience in ACT II.  For example, the insurance and the orphanage. Further, what commentary is being made with regard to A Doll House, given the events in this play so far? I look forward to your responses.

  

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen - Full Text

Quotations

1. Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was as though ghosts rose up before me. But I almost think we are all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all the country
over, as thick as the sands of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.

2. Yes--when you forced me under the yoke of what you called duty and obligation; when you lauded as right and proper what my whole soul rebelled against as something loathsome. It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrines. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing ravelled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.

3. Oh, wait a minute!--now I recollect. Johanna did have a trifle of money. But I would have nothing to do with that. "No," says I, "that's mammon; that's the wages of sin. This dirty gold--or notes, or whatever it was--we'll just flint, that back in the American's face," says I. But he was off and away, over the stormy sea, your Reverence.

4. It only shows how excessively careful one ought to be in judging one's fellow creatures. But what a heartfelt joy it is to ascertain that one has been mistaken! Don't you think so?

5. At last he said: "There has been something worm-eaten in you from your birth." He used that very word… He said, "The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children." No other explanation was possible, he said. That's the awful part of it. Incurably ruined for life--by my own heedlessness! All that I meant to have done in the world--I never dare think of it again--I'm not able to think of it. Oh! if I could only live over again, and undo all I have done! [He buries his face in the sofa.]

6. I only mean that here people are brought up to believe that work is a curse and a punishment for sin, and that life is something miserable, something; it would be best to have done with, the sooner the better…But in the great world people won't hear of such things. There, nobody really believes such doctrines any longer. There, you feel it a positive bliss and ecstasy merely to draw the breath of life. Mother, have you noticed that everything I have painted has turned upon the joy of life?--always, always upon the joy of life?--light and sunshine and glorious air-and faces radiant with happiness. That is why I'm afraid of remaining at home with you.